It's Déjà vu, all over again -- almost. You may have seen us here before with a larger funding objective. Well, that was too ambitious, but we really, really want to make these boards available. We took what we learned from the first go-round, went back to the financial and sourcing drawing board, found a lower-cost supplier, and tightened our belts. This is the same project, but with a smaller funding goal. The rewards are the same, but come at lower pledge amounts.

One thing that differentiates this proto-shield from anything else out there is our capriciously cunning dual-pad system. The few screw-block proto-shields that do exist typically have each screw-block terminal directly connected to its associated header pin and a single pad in the prototyping area, as shown below.

The problem is that sometimes you want a screw-block terminal to be connected to its header pin, but sometimes you don't. For example, you might want to insert some components between the terminal and the header pin. In our Universal Screw-Block Proto-Shields, each screw-block terminal and the associated header pin are connected to two separate pads. If you want the terminal to be wired directly to the header pin, you can simply connect the two pads together; otherwise, you can easily connect the pads into the prototyping area.

Last but not least, one thing that always makes me chuckle is the qualifications we attached to the "Galactic Monty Combo With Whipped Cream" pledge level. Check out the reward grid toward the bottom of the Kickstarter project page.

Wow. I just took another look at the project page. We are already a quarter of the way to our new goal, and this project went live only a couple of hours ago. I'm bubbling over with excitement.